


Every Night

by reapertownusa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Weechesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-28
Updated: 2011-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 00:37:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reapertownusa/pseuds/reapertownusa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Mary's death, John is more sure of some things than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Night

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: Pre-series. Written for spn_las prompt 'Time will tell'.

Some nights, John wondered if he could trust his own memory.

When he’d openly sworn to seek vengeance against Mary’s murder, he’d received only looks of disbelief and pity from the eyes of former friends. Cutting ties had been easy after that.

They were too naïve to help him.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried to pretend. With enough alcohol filling his empty stomach, he could nearly imagine that it had been only a trick of the light, that smoke inhalation had muddled his mind.

Then he blinked and the image that was forever seared into his retinas flared to life. Mary splayed bloody on the ceiling, face twisted in horror and her silent scream frozen in time.

It was insane, John knew that, but it was also true.

Some nights, he shot up in bed, relief coursing through him even as his heart pounded painfully in his chest. In that split second, between sleep and waking, everything was okay.

It had only been a nightmare.

Every time he died a little more when his hand, automatically reaching for the loving warmth of his wife, came back cold and empty. Then the weight of reality crushed back down around his heart.

When the sense memory of burning flesh faded, it was replaced with the dull reek of a cheap motel room. The air freshener masked odor of cigarette smoke was foreign and offense, too reminiscent of ash.

Some nights, he wondered if he was in the room alone.

He laid in the dark and listened. Half the time, he discovered that it was his baby boy’s lonely cries that had woken him. Then, resignation seeped further into his bones.

He prayed for the accusatory cries to stop, if only so he wouldn’t drown in the waves of guilt that flooded over him when he couldn’t force his leaden body to get out of bed and go to his son.

All he could see when he heard Sammy’s cries, was his son’s face illuminated by the flames of Sammy’s mother burning above him. The mother John had failed to save.

As he lay paralyzed, he could hear the rustle of sheets and then let himself breathe when Sammy’s wails softened to quiet fussing.

If he could force himself to look, he would see the silhouette of Dean, kneeling on the other bed, trying to rock comfort into his baby brother just like he’d seen his mother do, just like John knew he should be doing.

The other half the time, when he startled awake, he thought the boys were ghosts. Even by day, Dean was scarcely more than a specter of the bright son he’d once had, now faded and deathly silent.

But his sons were real, that much John knew.

They were as real as the hot blood that had dripped from the ceiling onto his hand, into his son’s crib. They were as real as the monster that had torn apart his family.

Every night, John wondered if he had made the right choice.

As his boys grew, blankees were nearly instantly replaced with the solid protection of a 9mm. With each unnoticed birthday, it was impossible to say whether he was protecting them from the darkness or drawing them further into it.

Only time would tell if he was the one who had been naïve.


End file.
